


halloween

by accidental_optimism



Category: MAAS Sarah J. - Works, Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Abuse, but until then: slightly sexist tropes, lorcan as the most Reluctant™ hero u've ever seen, o boy it's another meet-cute, someday i'll write a fic where elide comforts lorcan, sorry these guys are all i care about
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 09:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accidental_optimism/pseuds/accidental_optimism
Summary: Elide goes to a Halloween party, and gets a scare. Comfort comes from an unlikely corner.





	halloween

**Author's Note:**

> helloooo it's been literally a year (at least) since i wrote anything but i've finally caught a break so here i am! (second year uni is PAIN also i'm 19 now and not ok)
> 
> anyway, this is me gratifying my need for reluctant elorcan affection instead of sleeping. surprising? not to me
> 
> also, if anyone's wondering what happened to renaissance woman: i kinda lost my flow on that story, especially as exams happened and then i was on holiday and doing other things - i may pick it up again in the future but for now i'm probably only gonna be doing one-shots (and ofc kingdom of ash is out now so there's that...) but yeah i'm really sorry ik some ppl were invested but i just,,, lost the motivation i needed to write a long fic
> 
> anyway: i really hope u enjoy this - apologies for any spelling mistakes or weird punctuation!!

The house was literally glaring with light. Yes, it was glowing with lights all across and around it, and from the lawn below. Yes, Elide had seen less decorations in a Christmas pop-up store, and could probably have powered her car with all the batteries which had gone into this display. But, on top of all that, some _maniac_ had stuck a giant cut-out of a jack-o-lantern on the front of the building.

The gaping, comically jagged mouth leered at Elide as she stepped onto the path leading through glowing skeletons, monsters, and a whole pumpkin patch up to the front door of the house. This particular doorway was almost completely obscured by the jack-o-lantern's chin, but someone had cut out the edge of the door so that it could actually be opened. Now it looked like the jack-o-lantern had a glowing, upside-down L-shaped scar. _Means he has an origin story, I guess_ , Elide thought to herself.

She high-tailed it up the path. Elide had had to walk a block from her car, that was how packed this party was. And she was _cold_. Despite the fact it was only autumn, a chill wind was blowing. Fitting to the spooky mood, she supposed. _Pathetic fallacy_ is what they'd called that in high school. _Weather reflects mood._ Anyway, enough of the analysis... She reached for the door handle-- and paused. There were. A lot. Of people in there. Elide didn't usually get nervous at parties, but arriving late, meeting so many new people - that was daunting. Plus, she didn't like surprises. She had history which made sure of that. Her ankle was braced, but that didn't mean she still wasn't at a disadvantage if something happened. And if she knew her friend, there were going to be pranks tonight.

"You owe me one, Aelin," Elide muttered to herself. Then she opened the door and stepped inside. 

***

She'd been looking for her host for 30 minutes. The party went on around her, people eating and laughing, dressed as monsters and celebrities and the occasional slutty nurse. She had to give it to them that she hadn't seen a single Native American costume. They might be loud, but they were a conscientious bunch at least.

Elide herself was dressed as a witch. Not a hag - at least, she didn't think her eyebags were _that_ bad - but she had a broom and a pointy hat and this cute little black velvet dress she'd thrifted. Her thick black ankle brace looked a little weird, but she was wearing a pink and green polka-dotted sock on the other foot, just to make things interesting, and some of those pointy witchy boots that Manon liked wearing. In fact, she'd eat her left pointy witchy boot if Manon wasn't dressed as a witch tonight as well. And speak of the devil...

Manon waved from across the room. It seemed that she had enslaved Dorian, who was dressed as a vampire, into getting punch for the both of them, and as Elide started towards them she saw Manon tap him on the shoulder and point at her. Dorian let out a visible sigh, and went back for another cup. He did give her a charming smile though, so Elide opted not to take offense.

Manon had lost her pointy hat somewhere, but Elide's left shoe was safe for tonight. "WHERE'S AELIN?" Elide yelled over the pumping music. "I CAN'T FIND HER ANYWHERE."

Manon crinkled her nose, while somehow making it look regal. "I wouldn't put it past her to have gone off with Rowan. Again." Manon had one of those voices that carried without her having to put in any effort, and Elide hated her a little for it. But she was right about Aelin and her strapping boyfriend. They still hadn't left the honeymoon phase of complete and utter horniness.

Elide sighed, and then took a deep breath to yell, "WHERE DID YOU SEE HER LAST?"

Dorian had returned with her punch. "SHE WAS GROPING WHITETHORN BY THAT ANATOMICALLY INCORRECT SKELETON," he shouted, handing the glass over. She accepted it with a nod of thanks. "I WOULDN'T GO LOOKING FOR THEM UPSTAIRS IF I WERE YOU, BUT IF, HEAVEN FORBID, THEY GOT A HOLD OF THEMSELVES, THEY MIGHT STILL BE AROUND. HAVE YOU TRIED THE KITCHENS?"

Elide shook her head. "I MIGHT TRY THERE THEN - THANK YOU!"

Dorian winked and slung a casual arm around Manon's shoulders. The white-haired girl scowled-- and then nipped his earlobe.

Aelin and Rowan weren't the only horny ones, Elide mused, as she headed for the kitchen.

As she walked, she noticed someone brooding next to that - painfully misaligned - skeleton. He was huge, with long dark hair falling around his rough-hewn face, and, disappointingly, appeared to be dressed as himself. Two meaty arms were folded across his straining chest. _Yikes_ , thought Elide. Then, _Yikes_ , again as his black eyes met hers under his craggy brows. She wouldn't lie - he was _hot_ , but he also looked like he could snap her neck with two fingers. She flashed him her most charming smile - he still looked angry, but now also mildly bemused - and then walked into the kitchen. Good. She loved to leave the boys bemused!

Sure enough-- a head of golden hair at 2 o'clock. The girl attached to that head of hair was talking excitedly as her hands gestured wildly in the air. She broke into a joyful laugh, and the guy leaning against the counter next to her smiled lazily. He nodded at Elide, and she gave a wave. Rowan Whitethorn was distinctive - as big as that guy in the other room, with a shock of white hair and piercing green eyes. He seemed to be dressed as some kind of elf? (A Lord of the Rings elf though, not a Christmas elf!) Classic Aelin; she was a warrior, featuring a Huge Sword™, which was in one of her dangerously gesticulating hands. Elide gulped a little, but Rowan had let her friend know she was there by the time she got within chopping range.

"About time!" Aelin dashed in for a hug. Elide hugged her back, praying she'd make it out of this embrace without injury. "Are you enjoying the party?" her friend asked as she drew back.

"Of course I am, and you know it," Elide chastised. "You always throw the best parties. What's in this punch anyway? I feel like I'm sitting in front of a fire."

Aelin winked. "It's 11 percent."

Oh boy. Elide was gonna be hurling later if she drank much more of this stuff.

A thought occurred to her. "Who's the big guy out there? He doesn't look like he's having much fun."

Aelin giggled. "That's Rowan's coworker, Lorcan. He's like that all the time." Her eyes met something over Elide's shoulder and widened. "Speaking of...."

Elide turned and there he was. His hands were in his pockets now, allowing her to gaze unobstructed at the true glory of his pectorals-- She snapped her eyes up to his. He was watching her, his brows drawn together. She couldn't defend herself. She'd been objectifying him pretty heavily.

Aelin made introductions. "Lorcan, this is my friend Elide Lochan. We grew up together. Elide, meet Lorcan Salvaterre." Elide smiled at him. He... frowned slightly less. Possibly.

A clap next to Elide's ear startled them both. "This is perfect!" Aelin said happily. "Lorcan, you've been to the haunted house already - you can take Elide!"

....Haunted house?

A deep voice spoke from very close to Elide. "Really? One trip through that shitshow was more than enough." Elide slowly turned to look at Lorcan, who had moved up next to her. She could read people pretty well - she knew this wasn't personal - but that didn't mean she wasn't a little hurt.

"A big strong guy like you isn't frightened, is he?" she said. Semi-jokingly. Lorcan scowled again, or rather deepened the same, original scowl, but he looked a little shocked too. She'd bet there weren't many people who talked to him like that. 

"Yeah, come on, Salvaterre," cackled Aelin, that menace. "You scared?"

Lorcan heaved a sigh. "Okay, fine. But don't expect me to enjoy it."

***

The haunted house was a shed.

A very big shed, but a shed nonetheless. It had those fake spray-on cobwebs all over it, and some hasty "R.I.P" and "Here Be Monsters" signs planted in the ground around it. A little disappointing, if Elide was honest.

"Alright, let's get on with it," Lorcan grumbled. He'd lead her here without speaking a single word. Now he turned to her. "You ready?"

His face was stony, but at this point she'd realised it was probably just his natural resting face. _Resting asshole face._ She nodded. "Let's go."

But as he opened the door and led the way into the dark, she thought, _I really hate surprises._

***

It was... honestly pretty awful. Yeah, Aelin had obviously put in a lot of effort, but she only had a certain budget to work with. There was more of that cobweb stuff hanging from the ceiling, gaping skeletons, some glowing monster blood-- pretty basic stuff. Elide did get a scare when a guy in a mummy costume jumped out of a sarcophagus, so she gave the haunted house one out of ten scare points. But for the most part it was just her and her silent guide walking through a cluttered maze of Halloween decorations.

"So," she said after a minute of this, nudging Lorcan with her elbow. He didn't jump, which made her sad, but he looked at her with more of that faint shock. Jesus, did no one ever elbow the guy? "Why'd you even come if you hate parties so much?"

He grunted. "I was invited." He eyed her for a moment. "And I had another party to get out of."

"Yeah? Popular guy!" Lorcan didn't respond to this. "Why'd you want to get out of that one?"

He scowled. "Do you always ask this many questions?"

Elide beamed at him. "Nope, it's just really boring walking around this shed without talking."

Lorcan pinned her with a beady eye. "...Or you're just nosy." He was silent for another moment. "It was a party for mine and Rowan's old work. There was someone there neither of us wanted to see." He sighed, long-sufferingly. "Aelin is very easy to persuade when it comes to parties."

"Sounds like she saved your arse though."

Lorcan eyeballed her. Then grunted.

Elide knew who he was talking about. Lorcan and Rowan's old boss, Maeve, had been a master manipulator who had gaslighted her employers into doing some shady shit. Aelin had told her, voice hushed so Rowan wouldn't hear, about the things he and his coworkers had gone through. It had been Aelin's influence which had encouraged Rowan to leave, and later on Lorcan and some of Rowan's other workmates had followed. Elide felt a shiver down her spine as she thought of some of the things those guys had been made to do at Maeve's bidding. 

It was as she was thinking about this, chilled to the bone, that a very unfortunate series of events began. First, a man dressed as Frankenstein's monster jumped out from behind a cardboard gravestone. Taken unawares, and already uneasy from thinking about Maeve, Elide jumped nearly out of her skin. She landed on a pile of cobweb material which had fallen on the shed floor. Her ankle gave.

She barely had time to whimper before she was falling-- straight into a gaping coffin lying next to the path. 

The lid began to fall, jolted from the impact of her landing. Her last instinct was to draw her feet in so it wouldn't land on her ankle.

The lid slammed closed with a dreadful air of finality, and the latches clicked shut.

***

If she'd been in full possession of her senses, Elide might have wondered why there was an operational coffin - with actual latches - in this very shitty haunted house. (Aelin got it from a friend of a friend who worked at an undertaker's. There was a whole dramatic tale of a coffin-smuggling ring behind this.) However, she was too busy struggling to breathe. 

There was a chunk of Elide's teenage years which she tried to avoid thinking about, which she'd spent mostly shut in a very small room. This had to do with a very bad uncle, and a will to her parents' fortune which Elide would have been able to contest. However, the price of not telling Uncle Vernon where the real will was so that he could destroy it, was basically indentured labour - and the rest of the time, being shut in the tiny attic.

Elide had escaped - with the help of Manon, a law student who had become involved when it was realised that the will Vernon had was a fake. She'd put her past behind her, and for the most part it had no lasting effects on her, such was her determination to live her life to the fullest. Therapy and open air and the love of the people around her had pulled the last of its claws from her heart and mind. But one fear remained.

Elide did not like very small rooms.

The air felt thick and heavy around her. Her breaths sounded loud and fast to her own ears. Her hands lifted, touched the lid of the coffin. It was close. Too close.

She dropped her hands and tried to breathe.

She knew that she should call for help. She knew she should knock and punch and claw at the lid. But she was hanging by a thread, and she knew that once she started, she wouldn't be able to stop. Control was the only thing she had.

So she lay, frozen, breathing shallow, quick breaths, and hoped.

She was still hoping, when the latches clicked, and the lid was wrenched open.

***

Lorcan had been startled when that Frankenstein bastard has jumped out at them. He supposed that was how he didn't notice the girl was gone immediately.

Not "the girl". Elide. It was a nice name, not that he ever said that kind of thing aloud. Girls didn't accept compliments from brutes like him.

Sometimes he wondered if that was him or Maeve talking. He wished she'd just piss off.

Elide didn't seem frightened of him. If anything, she'd been eyeballing his muscles for a bit, back there. It was flattering, although he was more used to scared looks and backing away. He mused upon that. Perhaps Elide was lacking some kind of regard for her own safety.

He walked on for a full minute before he realised she was gone.

"The hell...." He whirled around. Was she hiding somewhere, waiting to jump out? It honestly seemed like something that girl might do. He backtracked, cautiously. Where was she?

Suddenly he remembered something. When that guy had leapt out from behind the props and Lorcan had jumped, there had been a faint whimper to the side... And then a slam.

He'd thought it was some other "scare" in the background of this "haunted house" but now he wondered-- had she hurt herself?

The cardboard headstone loomed ahead. She had to be around here... He moved to where he'd been standing when the monster jumped out. The guy poked his head out from the scenery. "What are you--?"

"Save it," Lorcan growled. He tried to think where he'd heard the noises and turned--

A coffin. Was that real? he wondered. And then it struck him like a thunderclap. He strode towards the prop. It was latched shut.

He flicked the latches and yanked the lid open.

Elide was inside the coffin, and she was white as a sheet.

***

Never, in her whole life, had Elide been so relieved to see a scowl. And in her complete and utter relief, she began to shake.

***

Lorcan had no idea what to do. He barely dealt with people _at all_ let alone terrified women. Trembling and pale, she looked very small against the man-sized coffin. Funny, he hadn't noticed how short she was when she was teasing him. 

_I should get her out of there_ , he thought. So he reached in and scooped her up--

A pair of small arms wrapped around his neck with surprising strength. 

He knelt there for a few agonising moments - _I am not fucking qualified to deal with this!!!_ \- then sat down on the cobweb-coated floor, Elide a bundle in his arms.

Tentatively, he ran one large hand up and down her back. She was still trembling, but he thought the tremors were getting lighter. Was that a faint blush of colour in her pale cheeks?

His hand continued its slow journey up and down her back. Up and down. Up and down. Up...

The arms disentangled themselves from around his neck and her hands were crossed in her lap. "Sorry," she mumbled. "Claustrophobic." She remained sitting in his lap, however. 

Something in her eyes suggested that this wasn't all there was to this story. But whatever previously undiscovered instinct had told him that, also gave him the sense that she didn't want to be asked about it right now. And anyway, Lorcan was not exactly renowned for his skill at comforting people.

Clearing his throat, he tried to think of something to say. "Are you... Are you feeling better now?" It was something to fill the silence, but he found himself listening for her response with bated breath.

She nodded, slowly. "Thank you for, uh, helping me." She blushed, a wash of pink over those porcelain cheeks.

Lorcan found himself at a loss for words. 

***

He was very warm. 

Lorcan was like a furnace, in fact. His hand, still idly brushing her spine, felt like a heat pad, easing her tense muscles and warming her to her core. The rest of him was wrapped around her, almost encasing her, but not in such a way that she felt claustrophobic. His other arm was around her knees, which were folded up to her chest; his head was tilted towards her so he could look her in the eye. His crossed legs supported and surrounded her.

She'd only just met him, and yet... she felt comforted. Safe.

A rumble next to her ear signalled he was clearing his throat again. "Would you... like to go back to the party? Or even just outside?" He blinked at her. "This shed stinks of scared asshole."

The corner of her mouth twitched into a tiny smile. "Yeah, we can go outside. Just... can we sit here for a minute longer?"

Dark eyes gazed down at her. Somewhere in the past couple minutes the crinkle between his brows had disappeared. "Yeah, okay," he said, softly.

***

Aelin and Rowan had finally made it upstairs after he'd bitten her on the neck, she'd nearly impaled Yrene Westfall with her sword, and her old "friend" Chaol (Yrene's husband) had told them both to _get a goddamn room_. Married people were so touchy...

Aelin disentangled an arm to grope for the curtains - the neighbours didn't need to see what was about to happen - but as she broke away from Rowan's determined lips to see what she was doing, she spotted something out the window which made her pause.

"What is it," mumbled Rowan from where his mouth was pressed to her jugular. She shushed him, and reluctantly he detached to see what she was looking at. And then he stilled too.

Two figures were making their way through the side gate which separated the backyard from the front. One was very big, and dwarfed his smaller companion. As they watched, he held the gate open, and the little one turned to smile up at him--

"I hope she knows what she's doing," muttered Aelin.

Her boyfriend wrapped two loving arms around her and swooped in for a kiss. "If I know Elide," he smiled against her lips, "I'd be more worried for _Lorcan's_ safety."

There was no more talking for quite a while after that.

**Author's Note:**

> a note: i come from nz where halloween is pretty lowkey, and from a house that doesn't celebrate halloween at all. all my halloween knowledge comes from my friend's halloween themed birthday when we were 14, american movies, and that one time i went to japan and tokyo disneyland was covered in pumpkins so feel free to criticise my impressions of a legit halloween party...
> 
> also, i've tried to discuss past abuse here and elide's reaction to it and the residual effects, but i'm not particularly experienced in this stuff so feel free to let me know if u feel like i've brushed over it or been disrespectful to people with depression/anxiety/ptsd due to past abuse/trauma! elide in the books seems to be the sort of person who is lucky enough to be able to push on and not let her past control her, so i've tried to write her that way, but i'll freely admit my inexperience with these things personally, and i'm always ready to be educated!


End file.
